Tag: ISO

AtoZ Challenge: The Glossary

The AtoZ Challenge has already come to an end for the second time, and as a result, now a glossary of the terms can be made. I believe this shall come handy for future references!

A – Aperture, Artificial Horizon

B – Bulb Mode, Bokeh

C – Colour Temperature, Composition

D – Double Exposure , Depth of Field

E – EXIF Data, Exposure Bracketing

F – Forced Perspective, Focus Stacking

G – Ghosting, Grain

H – Hot Shoe, Hyperfocal Distance

I – Infinity Focus, ISO

J – Juxtapose, JPEG vs RAW

K – Keylight, Kelvin

L – Latitude, Lens Distortion

M – Manual Mode, Macro

N – Normal Lens, Noise Reduction

O – Optical Zoom, Overexposure

P – Panning, Post Processing

Q – Quality, Quiet Release

R – Red Eye Reduction, Rear Curtain

S – Spot Metering, Shutter Speed

T – Tonal Range, TTL Metering

U – Urban Landscape, Underexposure

V – Vignetting, Vibration Reduction

W – Watermark, White Balance

X – X Speed, X Process

Y – Your Rapport, You

Z – Zoom (Digital), Zoom Burst

Have a look at these terms and let me know if I ought to add some to the list.

Cheers!!

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AtoZ Challenge: I – Infinity Focus

Infinity Focus

Often we hear the term “Infinity Focus” being used while shooting landscapes or during astro photography. What it actually means is, the focus plane to be such that maximum light rays which focus on the sensor shall be in parallel plane.

While shooting landscape photos, we focus at a plane, where the infinity of the lens is within the hyperfocal distance; but while shooting in astro photography, the focus is at infinity. This post elaborates more on the point.

In practice, sometimes, due to ambient conditions, the camera may not be able to focus correctly and give results of the following kind.

Hazy photo of a landscape

This is where the infinity focussing is useful. Since the object is far away from the lens, focussing in a manner where the subject is in the hyperfocal infinity, yields a better result.

Clear Photo of landscape

The infinity markings on the lens are found in the following ways

Infinity markings on lens

Go out there and shoot beautiful landscapes and amazing star trails and milky ways and never worry about soft focus any more.

Last time, I was for ISO.

Cheers!!

 

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Light Trails

Photography is all about how you play with light. Whatever be the kind of photography you do, light is the essential common denominator, be it portrait, landscape, macro, or any other thing you can think of.

Light trails are a mix of use of depth of field, controlled shutter speed and ISO. Along with the basic trinity, you also bring in creativity, and different props. The understanding of how a shot is being taken, or how it should be taken, is paramount while doing light trails, light paintings and such.

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Its not always that a slow shutter is all you need. Sometimes, varying the light source also helps.

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In the end, all that matters is, that you must have a lot of fun.

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Have fun experimenting with different light sources. Understand this, when your shutter is open during an exposure, any and every movement of the light source pointing towards the camera, shall be captured by it. Use this to make shapes, letters, drawings .. the possibilities are limitless.

Good luck.

Cheers!!

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AtoZ Challenge: PH – I: ISO

I for ISO

ISO, in terms of the camera settings and use, is the measure of the sensitivity of the sensor. More the ISO number, more sensitive it is. More sensitive means more light gathering capacity with allows you more latitude while manipulating the other essential camera settings for the shot. But, there’s a trade off too. With increased sensitivity, there comes, increased noise. The camera software works upto a certain limit to suppress the noise, but then, it becomes a bargain between more light or more sharpness. Keeping a low ISO, is recommended for a crisp photo.
Details, here.

ISO400

ISO12800

 

This is a part of April AtoZ Challenge. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I are done. Rest soon.

Cheers!!

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4. Shutter Speed and the Holy Trinity of photogrpahy

Hi there all…today the final part of the basics, shutter speed…
Shutter speed, as the name suggests is how fast or how slow the shutter will open up and close down. Lower the shutter speed, slower is the shutter movement and hence more time for the sensor to gather light.
The speed is denoted by notations like 1/250, 1/500 ranging upto 1/4000 commonly, upto 1/16000 are also found in very high end models. And on the slower side, speeds go 1/10, 1/2, 1′, 10′ generally up to 30′ and then there is a “bulb” mode. In the bulb mode, the shutter will remain open as long as the shutter button is pressed, no time limit to it.
Please note, 1/250 means, shutter will remain open for 1/250th of a second. Similarly, with a shutter speed of 2′, the shutter will remain open for 2 seconds. A faster shutter speed will allow you to freeze motion, make your photos less susceptible to camera shake and other disturbances while a slower one will allow you to show motion in form of trails, or ghost images.

     1/20     1/125     1/320

Now that we know the 3 basic pillars of making of a photo, namely, ISO-Aperture-Shutter Speed, we must now understand how these three are related. Let me explain below.

Assumption: we want a properly exposed, unblurred and negligibly noisy photo

1. With increase in shutter speed, chances of blurry image is less, and also the amount of light available decreases. So, for a properly exposed photo, we need to either slow down the shutter speed, or open up the aperture or increase the ISO.
We try opening up the aperture to the maximum to let in more light and also, we increase the ISO setting to make the sensor sensitive…then, the limiting factors become, how much DOF do you want, and how much noise can your camera handle.
For settings where you control the shutter speed and let the camera handle the rest, switch to the Shutter Priority mode, denoted by the “S” button on the dial in Nikon Cameras.

2. With a wide aperture, you get ample light to work with, but a very shallow DOF. Suppose you want a deeper depth, you ll need to stop down the aperture a few stops. This, in turn causes the light available to decrease, and hence, the need arises to lower the shutter speed or increase the ISO. As stated earlier, lower shutter speed will cause blurriness due to camera shake and higher ISO will cause noise. Hence, the limiting factor basically becomes, how slow shutter speed can the lens accommodate with the Vibration Reduction (VR) systems and/or how steady your hand is.
For settings, where you control only the aperture, switch to the “A” (Aperture Priority) mode in Nikon Cameras.

3. There will be conditions, where the aperture value is maxed out, and the shutter speed is as slow as feasible and still not enough light, that is when we need to increase the ISO out of compulsion, in my opinion that is. The sensor becomes more sensitive and we get better exposure, but the chance of a grainy pic is always there.
For this mode, where you get to change only the ISO, dial in to the “P” (Program Auto) mode in Nikon Cameras.

These modes are tried and tested over the years of SLR history and they deliver impeccable results with an appreciative hit rate, its a huge advantage to know how they work. But then, there are those, who want to have total control over the Trinity. If you are amongst those who are not afraid to take complete control of your camera, have a lot of misses and very few hits initially, learn to read the photo histograms, understand the range finder and then take a shot…then switch to the Manual mode, “M” on the Nikon bodies. As an afterthought, sooner or later, you will have to shift to the Manual mode to grow…so I ll suggest, get friendly with the Manual mode early on, but do know the quick settings that might be handy in a jiffy.

Once you get cool with the modes, shots like these, are going to be easy.

  15s  1/250

1/200

Next up, the first photo effect and some shots of a very common and very beautiful, Bokkeh!

Cheers!

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2. ISO

Hi all…today, the first basic concept of the image…ISO
Some of you might know and remember ISO stands for International Organization for Standardization and they set some standards, namely, ISO12232:2006, for determining sensitivity of a camera sensor, hence the name ISO. Not going into all the technicalities, long story cut short….ISO lets you change the sensitivity of the sensor.
Lower the ISO number (say ISO 100/200, even up to 400 on some cameras) better will be the clarity of the picture, this is kind of a thumb rule. So, why would we want to rise from these numbers at all, set the camera to the lowest ISO and snap away…we always want the sharpest of pictures right? The argument is true, Yes, we do want the sharpest photos but every now and then, we are in situations where we do not have decent amount of light. Bumping up the ISO, lets us deal with this issue. When we are increasing the ISO number, we are increasing the light sensitivity of the digital sensor. The ISO system today, in digital cameras is equivalent to what film speeds were in the film cameras. Remember the numbers written on the film rolls, and how a 400 or a 800 speed film would be pretty costly and hardly be given to us, when we were younger, while the 100 or 80 speed ones were cheaper and more dispensable. Back then, the film speeds reflected how sensitive the film were to low light conditions, more sensitive, more pricey.
But, the sensitivity comes with a trade off too…noise, digital noise. Digital noise is what causes tiny grains to appear on the photos. Sometimes we do put on a film-grain effect on the photo to make it look different, but if they come up in the original photo, it is undesirable. Now, with increase in the sensitivity, the noise also increases. To counter this, the cameras generally have a noise reduction system in them. These systems, take care of the noise till ISO 800 with ease, some take handle it up to ISO 6400 too, but beyond that, the noise overwhelms the anti-noise system and they appear in the photos.
Below are a few photos, which are almost 200% crops of bigger photos, taken of a pillow cover at various ISO to show the difference. Notice that in ISO 100, 400, and also in 800, the strands are pretty much visible separately but once beyond that, they start getting smudged in the photo…this is being caused by noise and in ISO6400 and ISO12800, the details are almost non existent.

The high end DSLRs provide with ranges near ISO204800. Agreed, at that high range, your picture will be noise and noise only, but the sensitivity will allow you to shoot at pitch darkness and your camera will see more than your eye can and give you some outputs, in theory at least…need to try this in practice someday..
Now, even in the entry level DSLRs, the noise reduction system is good enough that on a general viewing, the noise might not be a distraction to the great photo that you have taken. But as and when you start printing them, say at 100%, the noise will show up and believe me, you would want to avoid that.

To avoid the noise from creeping in and ruining your shot, you ll need to handle the aperture ( F stop) and the shutter speed….topics coming up on the next posts..

Cheers

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